Three Honorary Degrees at Brighton University

More than 1,800 students will be receiving their awards this year from Brighton University on Thursday 9 and Friday 10 February. Also receiving awards will be three honorary graduates:

1) Australian musician and writer, Nick Cave, is to be awarded an honorary doctorate by the University of Brighton.

The Hove-based counter-culture icon is internationally renowned for his intense lyrics, language and music that have also come together in successful film scores, screen writing and novels, the most recent, The Death of Bunny Munro, published in 2009 and set in and around Brighton.

He will receive a Doctor of Letters on Thursday 9 February in recognition of his international standing in the arts and his patronage of Cine-City, the annual Brighton Film Festival, co-presented by the university's Faculty of Arts.

2) An honorary degree will be presented on Thursday to the BBC's Director of News, Helen Boaden, in recognition of the support she has given to budding young media and journalism students over many years.

Helen, who is the first woman to hold the position of Director of BBC News, studied English at the University of Sussex, where she was taught by the Deputy Vice-Chancellor of the University of Brighton, Professor Stuart Laing.

3) Children's author, Michael Rosen, is to be awarded an honorary doctorate from the university on Friday 10 February.

Michael was Children's Laureate from 2007 to 2009. He will be awarded with a Doctor of Letters in recognition for his writing and broadcasting on children's literature, his lectures on the same subject at universities across the UK and his huge contribution to engaging children in reading.

Michael is author of the classic picture book "We're going on a bear hunt" which won the Nestlé Smarties Grand Prize in 1989. The English Association awarded "Michael Rosen's Sad Book", illustrated by Quentin Blake, an Exceptional Award for the Best Children's Illustrated Book of 2004.

He has received numerous other awards for his literature and has written for both adults and children. He is equally at home talking to children as presenting his BBC Radio 4's magazine programme "Word of Mouth" which focuses on the English Language and its use.